Second, the Point

Backlighting saved handheld gaming.  Why something that may be rather obvious? Because it only recently really became so to me.

It happened while I was playing Link's Awakening on an actual factual Game Boy Colour. It was almost impossible to position myself so that everything on the screen was clear. Without bright, directly overhead light, it's impossible to properly play on it.

Perhaps it was only technological limitations, but it makes me wonder why it took until a special edition of the Game Boy Advance for Nintendo to add backlghting to their handhelds. If their presence in the market had begun with the Game Boy it might make sense, but since it started with over a decade of the Game & Watch (G&W) games, waiting so long makes little sense.

Though, maybe the screen's visibility wasn't so much of a problem with the old G&W games, since they were pure LCD and had only black and not black for their colour palette  Comparing them to modern handhelds is like comparing black and white tube TVs to flat screen hi-def models, but nonetheless.

Increased graphical fidelity definitely helped see handhelds along and helped to keep them relevant. Without backlighting, however,  all of that output power would be for naught as players struggled to even see what was happening on their palm-sized screen. So that extra bit of luminescence definitely saved the handhelds.

Worm Lights only ever lit part of the screen, after all.